PAO is currently beating Oly Volou 2-0 with about twenty minutes to go. I was hoping PAO would lose this one or it would end up in a draw but our fate is still entirely in our hands (the match has now ended with a 3-0 victory for PAO). Either way, tonight will be a huge game.

AEK has beaten the locals courtesy of goals from Manolas and two from Lagos.Unfortunately,I didn’t watch the game,but highlights can be found on this link….

I hope AEKMAN74 won’t mind me adding to his post, but I figured I’d just add to his rather than post a new entry. I only managed to find a decent stream in time for the second half so that’s all I can comment on, but I still won’t say much. To be honest, we really should have scored at least another two goals in the final 45 minutes, with the chances we had. However, credit to Larissa, they managed to claw their way back. Also, credit for the their second goal, it was some very nice football indeed on their part.

The fact that we managed to let Larissa get within one goal of drawing the match however, after having a 3-0 lead from so early on, is a fairly scary thought considering we have the playoffs and a Cup Final coming up.

I won’t say much more about the game, I missed quite a bit of it. It is a shame, however, to see Larissa drop to the second division. I know alot of people may be happy about it, but I personally would much rather see teams like Panionios, Xanthi, and Volou out of our league as soon as possible. Larissa are a club with a brand new and very attractive stadium, supporters who managed to create an impressive atmosphere on Sunday, a side who recently won the cup and also had an impressive run in the UEFA Cup a few years back. These are the teams who should be staying up in order to benefit our league in general, rather than clubs run and operated by scum like Panionios, Volou, and Kavala (as well as many others… ).

Oh well, the league is pretty much done for the season aside from one more game. Now we have the playoffs and Cup final to look forward to. What will happen after that, come the start of next season, none of us will know. However, the team has a great chance now to win a cup and book a place in the qualifying rounds for Champions League. Its all I can hope for right now…

We made it much more difficult for us than we needed to but, thanks for Michel’s last second GOLARA, AEK are through to the semi-finals!

I’ll admit that I did miss the second half due to this lovely snowstorm we had today in Ontario and the shoveling which was required, but I managed to catch the first even though it wasn’t all good news. Lagos got us off to a great start by scoring on the 12 minute mark, allowing us to further strengthen our advantage. One would think that at this point, with a 3-0 aggregate lead, we would practically be through, correct?

Not so… Nine minutes later, Cisse headed home a pass off of a cross to even the score up at 1-1…. No worries, we still have a two goal lead with two away goals. Again not so as Gilberto managed to put PAO in the lead with a fantastic shot, one which saw the ball find its way through a tightly packed defense just before halftime.

Half time came and it was then that I had to leave… however my confidence had sunk considerably by that point. PAO were pressuring it was obvious that we would need to lift things up a bit if we wanted to ensure our progress to the next round. After all, we still had a one goal lead and only one more goal would have all but sealed the deal.

Midway through the second period I took a break and checked the score… I couldn’t believe it, but PAO had managed to get in a third to put the score of the match at 1-3, a score which would been good enough to put them through! If our players didn’t feel the urgency before then I certainly hope they felt it after.

From what I read it sounds as those we finally began applying some more pressure as the second half progressed, but I may be wrong. A highlights clip I saw did show us coming close on a couple of chances including a nice shot from Diop.

The time we had left began to decrease quickly and I became less and less confident we could get the result we needed based on the score… however what I didn’t know at the time was that a pitch invasion by a few of our fans lead to an additional seven minutes being added on at the end, a seven (eight by the end apparently due to time wasting) minute span which gave us the chance we needed to score the goal. Some inspiration from Michel and a slip up by the PAO keeper were enough to clinch us qualification to the next round.

Seeing as I missed the second half all comments would be appreciated.

All in all, despite the tension of this match and all its ups (Lagos’ early goal, Michel’s brilliant strike) and downs (going down 3-1), it was a brilliant result and one which puts us even closer to winning some silverware! Our team, and even more importantly, us fans, deserve to see us win something after having Championships and Cup finals ripped from our hands. I also can’t wait to see Libe finally raise a trophy with AEK!

Lovely 4-0 score, Blanco (twice), Libe, and DELLAS all on the scoreboard, such a great site to see! Blanco’s form has been incredible lately and now that Zorro is back it feels like a day hasn’t passed since three years ago.

Unfortunately, we still sit a fair bit back from the top. However, what is important is that we took care of getting a positive result against a team who has always been a bit of a struggle for us. We didn’t play the best football we’ve seen all season long, but we turned things on when we needed to, took advantage of having an extra player, and made sure didn’t slip points like we did last week.

Arabatzis started in net and did well. He’s been looking quite solid in the air lately, rarely fails when he commits to the ball and I can’t complain with him at all. We needed him to be in top form seeing as Larissa came to the game with the intention of picking up some points. They created a number of decent chances, particularly in the first, which fortunately for us resulted in nothing.

I’m going to hold back on commenting much on individual players since my stream wasn’t the greatest, but I did notice a huge improvement in our play when Lagos and Kafes came on in exchange for Leonardo and Scocco. Scocco was busy upfront from what I saw, though the addition of Kafes and Lagos to the match seemed to improve our attack as a whole. Leonardo created little from what I saw, but I did miss alot so I don’t want to be too hard on the guy.

The referee was horrendous today, to the point where I was starting to feel quite outraged (well, not quite but I was certainly irritated). I can only imagine what everyone in the stadium was feeling. Unfortunately, only around 6,000 showed up for the match however as it was a very cold weekend in Athens (from the pictures I saw it looks like they received a decent amount of snow for so early in December). Hopefully we’ll see a better attendance figure at the match with Zenit, despite the late start time of 10:00 at night (well done UEFA, well done).

Also, it’s worth noting that Jimenez was kicked out of the match today and forced to watch much of it from the stands. He was off when the substitutions were made however it looked like he was still contacting his assistants on the pitch.

So, a decent performance, yet a fantastic result. Hopefully this gives us a confidence boost ahead of our critical match with Zenit!

As always, leave comments below. I would appreciate any as it is hard to watch these matches with such poor streams available!

You gotta love AEK. The minute a golden opportunity comes around to put us within two points of first place, what do we do? We waste it!

Panionios hasn’t been our luckiest team to play against recently, and today proved to be no different. However, very little, not even luck, could have assisted us today with the way our players played (as was evident considering the fact that Saja saved a penalty). There was no will evident in the majority of the players, no team chemistry, a stupid red which could have easily been avoided by Dadomo… just a poor performance all around.

To be honest, I would have loved to see us beat Panionios, but I had a feeling this would happen. Regardless, the team has proven they can play nice football against tougher opponents, and I’m sure they can bounce back, but there was no excuse for today’s performance.

To make matters worse, both Dellas and Diop picked up injuries.

Our starting lineup had Saja in net (who had a good game, including saving a penalty who’s rebound could have ended up in the net), but a defense which really wasn’t good enough. Argyriou has shown some good things but his performances have been far from flawless (it was his clumsy tackle which led to the penalty). I can’t go into much more detail since the ANT1 quality in Canada was just terrible and I missed part of the second half, but they will need to improve greatly for our game with Anderlecht, one which I still feel they can win if they show up and play football.

Djebbour had a brilliant chance to put AEK up by one after getting onto the receiving end of a Leonardo freekick but his finish wasn’t good enough.

Makos received verbal abuse throughout the match which led to our players being attacked by the Panionios fans as they were boarding the bus. Panionios fans, living up to their name the Paninios kittens (sorry, is that supposed to be Panthers?) How pathetic can you get, to the point where you would attack unexpected and unprotected players? Police were nowhere to be found and the players were forced to defend themselves. Additional support came from Lagos, Arabatzis and Manolas who went to the aid of Libe, Dellas, and Djebbour. Pathetic… more reason to see Paninios and their kittens sink down to second division.

Kittens… always running.

Hopefully we can put these events and this match behind us. We have a good team, an experienced and passionate coach, a new training ground ready soon, this is a prime opportunity for us to win some silverware, even if its only a cup. Hopefully the players regroup and focus on the task at hand.

For teams like AEK, games against opponents such as Panserraikos, Kerkyra, Thrasivoulos, etc, should be MUST WINS. Three points are crucial and while we will unfortunately drop them at times in the derbies, there is no excuse to not take advantage of weaker opposition. Fortunately for us this weekend, we did manage to get all three points, and while it is still early, these three points could prove to be vital.

The starting lineup was somewhat different compared to what I was anticipating. Arabatzis started in net, Jahic covered right back, Manolas and Dellas were centre, Lagos on the left. Midfield was Kafes, Makos, and Scocco while Djebbour, Libe, and Burns (!) took care of things up front (yes, seven Greeks in the starting eleven). The lineup seemed questionable at first, and while it took a good five minutes for us to gain control of the game (I was at first worried that Panserraikos might have proven to be a tougher opponent than anticipated), things started to settle together well as time progressed. Our attack was alive! Djebbour, Libe, and Burns were all eager and there were some good plays linking up between the three. Libe was often seen feeding some deadly through passes for both Burns and Djebbour to latch onto in front of the net. It still took a while before we managed to go one up but we eventually did after Djebbour controlled a beautiful chip pass from Libe and notched it down low before the keeper could get to it (that makes it two goals in two games for him).

Eventually, fairly late in the second, Kafes scored to make it 2-0 for AEK. However, it took chance, after chance, after chance, to get the ball in the net for us. We did look very good up front, but we wont always be playing against teams like Panserraikos. We have to make sure we can finish our chances when we make them.

The biggest (and most pleasing) surprise of the first half was Burns. He has constantly showed (ever since the tournament in Sydney) that he deserves to play a bigger role in this team and today he showed why. Great runs, superb control, he was always there on the wing when we needed him but he was just as dangerous in the box. If he gets some good playing time he can become a key player for AEK.

Scocco, on the other hand, was a huge disappointment. Sure, he did come close on a couple of free kicks, and he did manage to hit the post off a corner, but the eagerness we saw in Djebbour and Libe was n0ne-existent in his passionless play. Unfortunately it looks like we’ll be seeing more of what we saw from him last season.

Lagos gave a solid performance. He was very smooth bringing the ball up to attack and his speed and ball control was far from disappointing.

The stadium was almost full (it seemed there were some unoccupied seats in the vip section) and the atmosphere from my computer screen seemed nice and intimidating, just how we like it. I personally would be all for us playing some more games here (aside from the derbies). If there were a fourth stand added Rizoupoli could prove to be a very suitable temporary solution for us (Im not suggesting AEK adds another stand but simply stating scenarios from an ideal world).

Some tension was expected between the fans regarding Bajevic. The situation was not made any better when Dusan was sent off by the referee. To be honest, I still have no idea why the referee ordered him to leave but hopefully Ill find out soon enough.

AEK face Panserraikos tomorrow in Rizoupoli. The game is sold out (not surprisingly considering season tickets are almost as many as the stadium’s capacity) which should make for a great atmosphere in a football friendly stadium… assuming we get the result we desperately need! Both Olympiakos (2-0 against Kerkyra in a closed doors Karaiskaki) and PAO (1-0 away to Aris) won this weekend meaning we have a tough hurdle to overcome if we want to stay near the top (if we lose that is). A nice three points will keep us in a good position, despite it being early in the season.

Patsatsoglou will most likely start, along with Nasuti. Arabatzis is likely to be keeper, while the rest of the lineup is said to remain similar to what we’ve seen so far this season (Manolas, Lagos, Kafes, Leonardo, Scocco, Libe, and Djebbour).